MEDIC
by Shijin-sama
Summary: ANIMuS,The Animated Natural Immersion Simulator. Intended to be Aperture Science's next greatest project, has gone rouge. Even the worlds greatest AI GLaDOS has succumbed. Only one man stands between it and victory, Gavin Jordan. Codename: Medic.
1. ANIMuS

DISCLAIMER: Team Fortress 2 and Portal are property of Valve. I make no claim to any rights or properties therein. This is not intended for sale of any kind, and will not be in the future.

Title: MEDIC+

Rating: M for Mature. Due to violence, gore, language, and adult situations.

Original Idea: TripMineMedic [http : // www. youtube. com/ user/ TripMineMedic ]

Story By: Shijin-Sama / VtheEndV

Summary: ANIMuS. The Animated Natural Immersion Simulator. Intended to be Aperture Science's next greatest project has gone rouge. Even the worlds greatest AI GLaDOS has succumbed. Sealed off from the outside world there is no hope for escape, no hope for help, no hope to survive. Only one man stands between it and victory, Gavin Jordan. Codename: Medic.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The room is cold, so very cold. It always had been, even when it was filled with people. Gavin shivered and shuffled a hand through the papers at his side nervously. He had worked the calculations over so many times in his head. So many times he though his fingers might fall off or he might collapse from exhaustion. Every time, every single goddamn time it was the same. It wasn't viable, no chance at survival. At best he'd be stuck the same as the rest of those poor lost souls. At the worst, well death would seem like a godsend after ANIMuS got hold of him.

Reaching up he massaged his temples, eyes closed, forehead creased in pain. He wasn't a young man, hell he was thirty, and this kind of crap had happened to _him_ of all people. Scrubbing his hands across his eyes he leaned back up, dark brown eyes skittering over the gunmetal gray walls of the facility. The screen in font of him glowed dully, shedding it sepia tones over his face. He looked older than he was hell, he felt older than he was. In times past he might have craved for something like this to happen. Now he just wished he could go to sleep and never wake up.

There was a whisper of sound behind him, and his eyes lurched to the side. White flashed in the corner of his eyes.

_Marina _he thought dejectedly.

Swiveling his chair around he stared up at her. She wasn't what some people would call beautiful. She was too old and too stern for that descriptor. But she was striking. With hair and eyes as dark as crow wings, pink lips pulled into a stern frown. She was a nice woman, as far as he knew. After all they had never really been friends, before. He had always been closer to the others. Now though, now he had no one else. Only they were in here, sealed off from the outside world. Just two lonely souls, stuck in the closest thing to purgatory he had ever felt.

"It's a stupid idea," She burst out, clutching a clipboard to her chest with a grip so tight Gavin was sure he could have counted the veins in her hands if he had felt the need, "Your going to get everyone killed!" Her face was controlled, calm, cool, but her hands and her voice betrayed her.

His face darkened, and grabbing a hand full of the papers at his side he stood. At his full height he was not much taller than her, but his rage lent him power and he loomed over her. He shoved the sheaf of papers into her cold, hands. Uncaring as some of them drifted to the floor. It didn't matter. Each one of them said the same thing.

The computer he was forced to use might never have as much power as GLaDOS, but he didn't have a choice in the matter. Even the slightly insane AI had disappeared, sucked into the power of the rouge computer. Into something that was supposed to be, a simple GAME. Something that was supposed to be a perfectly safe simulation they could create and then farm to the filthy rich outside the walls of the laboratory. He cursed himself for not thinking, for not minding what happened, for not being there when he was needed.

He shoved past the woman, uncaring when she almost lost her balance. He strode, his legs pumping furiously, towards the room ahead of them. He could hear the hum from here. The nine pods attached to the huge supercomputer. The eight lives that were held within the grasp of an rouge AI.

Should have been one of them. His mind thought, only fulfilling the hurricane of guilt that had swirled within him for the past months.

He heard the sound of Marina's clipboard falling to the ground, and then her hands encircling his arm. His head turned and blinked owlishly, Marina had never been one for physical confrontation. She was a psychotherapist, not a fighter.

"You could kill them all," pleadingly: "You could _die_!" Her voice finally cracked in frustration and pain, "They're safe there Gavin, no worries, no memories, nothing!" She was almost in tears now, her face a mask of desperation. Pity wormed its way into his heart. He would be leaving her all alone here. All alone in an empty laboratory, with absolutely no contact with the outside world, a laboratory that was falling into disrepair every second with dwindling food supplies. He shoved that new guilt into a little box under his heart with all the others, and threw away the key into the darkness of his mind. There would be time to mourn later, after all was said and done. She might need him, yes. It remained that _they_ needed him more.

"We should be finding a way out!" She insisted blue eyes searching his face for some sign of acquiescence, "Instead of trying to fight a battle we know we will lose!"

Gavin had had enough, enough of this, enough of everything. His mind was made up, no questions, no reservations, no _looking back_. He shook her hands off wish a single pull oh his arms, and walked out of the small confined office that reeked with the stale smell of lies and failure. Marina stood frozen in the doorway, tears now streaming down her face.

They both knew what was most likely to happen. He was only a small man, walking into the jaws of death. The reaper stood ahead of him, his bone face twisted into a smile as he invited the newly dead and dying masses forwards. Come and try my game, death whispered coldly, Come and try little mortal man. Gavin walked on, knowing but unheeding to the unspoken words of the billions who had walked this path before him.

Gavin watched, with a sort of detached interest as his hands flexed outwards and pushed at a small door set into a recess. It swung open, with a whisper of a sound. They hadn't seen the need to lock it, nothing, ,not even a fucking mouse, stirred within these hollow walls. No the only cause to worry was staring him in the face, in a manner of speaking.

The room the door revealed to him was large and round, the same monotonous color of every other wall in the facility. Yet it was not the walls that all people saw first. No what a persons eye was drawn towards first was the metal and plastic monstrosity that clung to the ceiling like an overgrown parasite. It was the AI GLaDOS. It was huge and bulbous, bits of hardware stuck to it willy-nilly its white plastic casings a direct anti-thesis of the rest of the room. In times past one of those massive antenna might have swiveled around and stared at him, eyes glowing like the hounds of hell, but now the woman made of wires and chips was dead. Or as good as anything that could not 'die' could be considered dead.

Nestled at the base of the round platform that circled the lowest part of the AI there were nine, pods. Thick tangles of wire almost obscured them, as if they had only recently overgrown the area. It was sickening to see it now. Something that had once been the light of his life, the thing that would make him famous, wealth, safe.

He passed the pods, passed the people inside, his eyes skipping over faces. All of them friends, coworkers, and in a way his messed up family. Good people, people whom he had condemned to a fate worse than death. There bodies withering away while their minds lived elsewhere, unknowing of the monster of death lurking just at the edges of there vision. All because he hadn't noticed in time, because he hadn't been there.

Her reached the final pod, the only empty of the nine. Closing his eyes he pressed his hand to the door. His palm throbbed, not in a painful way, but as if his heart hand just skipped a beat and his whole body had seized for just an instant. It hissed open, spilling clouds of pure white oxygen into the air. He turned Marina, silly stupid Marina, stood at the edge of the room, eyes scared frieghtedn, all pupils on a field of white. It was funny, apparently he scared her shitless now.

_What fun_ he thought sarcasticly

"If you want to help Marina, fight from the outside while I do what I can from within." he offered her a final smile. Then he turned once more and faced his fate head on.

The door hissed closed behind him, and he could feel himself growing faint. For a single moment he was overwhelmed with fear, but then his mind cleared and her reviewed the facts.

It would be a long battle, he would probably lose, but he didn't care. Not anymore anyway.

The world faded out.

-------------------

Run_operation:ANIMuS_fullimersion(.)exe

....

New player found:

searching status

......

Gavin Jordan, log in?

pasword

...

xxxxxxx

accepted.

Assigning Status:

Medic

Game Start in:

3

3

1


	2. Emmergence

DISCLAIMER: Team Fortress 2 and Portal are property of Valve. I make no claim to any rights or properties therein. This is not intended for sale of any kind, and will not be in the future.

Title: MEDIC+

Rating: M for Mature. Due to violence, gore, language, and adult situations.

Original Idea: TripMineMedic [http : // www. youtube. com/ user/ TripMineMedic ]

Story By: Shijin-Sama / VtheEndV

Summary: ANIMuS. The Animated Natural Immersion Simulator. Intended to be Aperture Science's next greatest project has gone rouge. Even the worlds greatest AI GLaDOS has succumbed. Sealed off from the outside world there is no hope for escape, no hope for help, no hope to survive. Only one man stands between it and victory, Gavin Jordan. Codename: Medic.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The sun was shining brightly, the birds were chirping merrily, and everything was fine and dandy. Well… it was like that somewhere around here rest assured. The place where Gavin woke was cold, a little damp, and filled with the sounds of screams and the intermittent blasts of gunfire. Joy, they couldn't have made some sort of peaceful farming simulator or something. Nah, heavily realistic shooter it just had to be. Opening dark brown eyes the scientist groaned mightily, half in exasperation and half in pain.

"Ugh, Damn 'zis is just what I need, ja." Gavin paused, ignoring the concrete beneath him, the sounds of people dying in rather horrifying ways in nearby hallways, and his discomfort in general. He was rather sure that his voice didn't sound like it had about three seconds ago, and that he had never used the word ja in his life.

" Damn." Another pause, "There seems to be something wrong, huur, 'wiz my voice. Zis is not good, I zink? The programming, eh yes?" He stopped talking rather suddenly and licked his lips. Programming malfunction? He was rather sure he had never had a German accent before. Maybe it would go away in a few minuets. Blinking a final time he brought his arms up and pushed himself away from the floor. It was a small room, he could see. The same kind of gray of the Aperture Science corridors, but, well the simple way to put it would be to say that it was just dingy.

He filed the voice problem for later. If all went well he wouldn't be here all to long, and so it didn't matter all too much in the long run of things, as long as people could _understand_ him. Gavin lifted himself unsteadily to his feet, and then almost pissed himself out of pure unadulterated fright as something banged against his leg. When his eyes shot down he saw it was only some sort of nozzle and felt more than a bit chagrined at his own fright, even if it was a huge black monstrosity of a thing. Grabbing for it he tugged and felt a corresponding pull on his back.

Apparently the Medic class used some sort of, uh, nozzle thing to fight with, whatever. He had only been part of the research team, not the programmers, so realistically he had no idea what the hell he was doing with this stuff. Stomping one foot impatiently he glanced at his person once again, he'd never considered himself a narcissist of any kind, but he wanted to see what his 'character model' was like. After a moments perusal he came to a conclusion. Apparently he still looked like himself, mostly-ish as far as he could tell from what little he could see of himself. Clothing obscured most of his body, and there was a rather large pack strapped to his pack, the nozzle thing was attached to it via a long flexible hose, made out of kevlar or some other similar material. He was the same height, as far as he could tell, and nearly the same weight. Though this body was twice as fit as his real one. He could feel the muscles bunched beneath his skin, replacing the fat he had once possessed.

"MEDIC!" he jumped. The scream of pain accompanied by a small white balloon with a cross in the middle interrupted his thoughts as thoroughly as a train to the face. "MEDIC!" The voice cried again. The balloon's tail stretched off towards another section of the room, thorough a doorway on his left. It took him about a half of second to remember who and what he was at the moment. When it finally hit him like a train to the face, he dashed off towards the anguished cries.

He took the door at a run, almost falling flat on his ass in the hallway when the laws of physics and the huge pack on his back asserted their wills upon his body. It was only by the timely addition of a wall that he was saved. Shrugging the, undoubtedly, bruised shoulder off he barreled on through the corridor. Only to have to beat a hasty retreat as bullets tore down the run like they were seeking his fairly unwilling flesh. Pausing for a second, he crouched and considered the options.

When nothing followed the initial barrage he chocked it up to a one-time deal and proceeded onwards, but with a little more caution than his patriotic run from just moments before. He rounded the corner and saw his target, and almost vomited up what little was in his stomach. When the programmers had said it was realistic, he had no idea what they truly meant.

The boy who lay bleeding away on the ground in front of him couldn't be any older than seventeen. His face was pressed into the ground, a pool of blood forming around his inert body. He had the sickening revelation that this was one of the interns. Just some smart kid who had the misfortune of signing up for a ride through hell without any real knowledge of the consequences. The fact that he was wearing red, well that had nothing to do with it really. "What'cha 'doin!" The boy moaned his thickly Bostonian accent muffled and pain filled. "Fucking kill me already, damnit!" He rolled over hands pressed over his stomach, which was oozing blood and gore all over the floor. His dark brown tousled hair was coated in a layer of grime, and his eyes were squinting so hard into the light that he couldn't even tell what color they were.

The boy's body buckled in pain legs kicking and his back lifting from the ground as he struggle to keep his internal organs in place with only his own will, while his body rebelled from his control.

_No way to save him_ the part of him that had served on the ER floor at a major New York hospital for a year said _go find someone else who you can, and send your condolences to the family, help him die with dignity at the least. _

The boy screamed a little more, his cries echoing through the halls. Now he was blind to Gavin's presence, enemy or no. His pain was now his one and only companion. He was as close to death as any one, man or boy, he had ever seen.

Gavin's mind scrambled a rat in a wheel, trying to figure out what was happening. In the distance the gunfire and shouts had receded. Apparently whoever had shot him had had no mind to bother seeing if he was dead. No medics on that team, not that he remembered form the dossier at least.

_Medic? Medic?! _His mind seized on that thought, held on, and squeezed it until the rest of him caught up. Here he was standing around like a loon and he _was_ a goddamn medic! Team placement be damned, he was relatively sure the gun could give to shits what team the boy was on, and neither did he at the moment. He had taken the Hippocratic oath for a reason.

His muscles unlocked and the gun lifted as if guided by the divine had itself. The gun had a kick, and as he flipped the switch Gavin's entire body was given a kick backwards, a grunt escaping from his lips as he kept himself firmly in place.

The harsh electric blue glow hit the boy, and enveloped his body. He could see the pain recede, and then stop altogether, the boy relaxed, and soon he was completely healed.

"Thanks doc." The boy had crawled back to his knees, shaking hands reaching out for his hat and headset, which were dirty, and disgusting, but apparently still desirable. His accent was even more noticeable now, once he wasn't bleeding to death on the floor. The boy peered up at Gavin, who felt a cool sweat form on the back of his neck, it still remained to be seen how _much_ those who were here knew.

"Eh, yer new." Was all he said after some quiet deliberation, his eyes were pensive, he could see the gears running around in his head. Gavin was a different team, but he had saved him.

"Ja, boy, new az you would say." He replied wrinkling his nose at the way the words were coming out of his mouth.

The air was becoming heavy, Gavin wondered if he would have to kill the boy himself, with the saw that hung on his belt. He wasn't sure if he could manage to murder someone whose life he had just saved.

::You've failed.:: A feminine voice echoed throughout the halls, which had suddenly become quiet and still:: And might I mention you also SUCK; RED wins go home:: Gavin blinked.

"Stupid uptight bitch." The boy muttered to himself as he stood and steadied himself against a wall. His dark eyes swiveled towards Gavin's face.

"Listen Doc, I owe you one, I admit that. I don't like 'dyin anymore than the next John. But next round all bets are off." He turned and, as if the injuries had never existed, dashed away, and around the corner heading for his side of the field.

"Uh." Was as much as Gavin could manage to say. So much for gaining some ground, or some shit like that.

Gavin game one last uneasy stare at the blood splattered walls and floor around him, before turning back to the way he had come. Only to, once again, almost piss himself in fright. Because standing in the doorway was a huge, bald, and machinegun toting man.

""Waaaaugh, it is sad day! We have lost!" The man said grinning down at him, one paw like hand came down onto Gavin's shoulder, and the doctor almost went sprawling.

"But now Doctor here, eh? I am Heavy. We are on the same team now. You come with me I introduce you to smart man, he will fix you up good, no?'

So it was with this introduction that Gavin Jordan began his life on BLU team. He was a little bemused by the whole thing, to tell the truth.


	3. Revelations

DISCLAIMER: Team Fortress 2 and Portal are property of Valve. I make no claim to any rights or properties therein. This is not intended for sale of any kind, and will not be in the future.

Title: MEDIC+

Rating: M for Mature. Due to violence, gore language, and adult situations.

Original Idea: TripMineMedic [http : // www. youtube. com/ user/ TripMineMedic ]

Story By: Shijin-Sama / VTheEndV

Summary: ANIMuS. The Animated Natural Immersion Simulator. Intended to be Aperture Science's next greatest project has gone rouge. Even the worlds greatest AI GLaDOS has succumbed. Sealed off from the outside world there is no hope for escape, no hope for help, no hope to survive. Only one man stands between it and victory, Gavin Jordan. Codename: Medic.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Once you got past all the blood splatters, desiccated corpses, and other paraphernalia of a battlefield, Gavin thought the place was quite nice. Heavy, who refused to even admit he was named anything other than Heavy, had lead him down some of the more side corridors, and through a small, concealed door at the end of a hallway. It led into what was for all intense and purposes a living room. According to Heavy, the actual living quarters were separate from the main 'base', and inaccessible to anyone not of the designated team. Apparently it was to keep anyone from being murdered outside of the proper 'time'.

That was another thing that confused him, he was on a battlefield within a simulator, and things ran in rounds, so apparently they went at each other for about a day, and then got one or two off to heal and see if anyone _stayed_ dead. Which apparently before the last Medic had mysteriously kicked the German bucket, had never once happened. Apparently they were still confused about that one. Gavin had his theories, but nothing he was willing to commit himself to at the moment, which was a good thing, because he really didn't want to think about Hans being dead.

It had to have been Hans. Other than himself Hans had been the only other actual Doctor. A pediatrician to his Surgeon, but still a doctor. It made chills crawl down his back, chills that left him deeply disturbed in so many different ways.

"So new doctor see to injuries, no?" Heavy brayed with yet another powerful slap to the unfortunate smaller man's back. Gavin was sure he was bruising in some form or fashion, weather it would be from the shear force of the blows or the metal apparatus digging into his sides, well that was up for a vote, and by vote, he meant that it didn't matter in the least.

"Yes." He managed to squeak out as his lung refilled with sweet, sweet air. Sounded like a bloody four-year-old, he griped inwardly as he unfolded himself. As he did so with a grimace on his face he was making a mental note to never give the big Russian a reason to hit him in earnest.

"Well then, come, Comrade Sniper needs your attention." And with this less than sterling report he was manhandled down the corridor, past a kitchen, and through a drab hallway. Gavin tried to take it as best he could. After all his feet were dangling around three or so inches from the ground. He was also not so glad to feel his gag reflex reaching up through his esophagus and strangling his brain, because _hello_ having a starched collar jammed into your Adam's apple was just enough incentive to spew whatever lunch he had figuratively had, really. Heavy seemed happy enough, Gavin thought, he peered through the clear lenses at the man's happily lit face. He had a broad grin stretching from ear to ear, and his eyes seemed wide and friendly. Gavin was sure he was a nice decent, well-meaning guy. To people he liked, by which he meant people on his team.

The door to the bathroom was open, the need for privacy in such a place was obviously not of the top priority. So Gavin had a clear view of the tall lithe man slouched on the lid of the toilet. A man who was trying, with obviously clumsy fingers, to fish something out of what seemed to be a large bullet wound in his shoulder. It was all but two strides into the cramped space before Gavin's finger gently pushed the taller mans hands down and away. Dark brown eyes shot upwards and he seemed half ready to spring from his seat, but almost as soon as the motion had begun it ended. Gavin figured if he was about to get decked that was okay, because hell he was a doctor. Nothing would ever be as bad as the time the unwed teenage mother hand slammed his head into the bars on the side of his bed when he had dared ask about STD's. It was one of the many reasons he no longer wore ties to work, and the only one he ever cited to his superiors.

One hand held the shoulder firm as the other dipped into a small pouch at his side bringing a small pair of tweezers upwards. He had run the rotation at an inner city hospital once, so bullets imbedded several inches into the flesh were nothing really new. So with little thought to the procedure he gripped the bloody shoulder all that much more tightly, and plunged the tweezers into the gaping hole. The man hissed and his shoulder jerked underneath Gavin's fingers but otherwise he made no sound. Unlike many of the gangbangers he had patched up, who invariably cried. He swished the tweezers slightly probing the wound, located the small lump of lead, secured it, and brought it up and out with as little extra damage as he could muster. The bullet and tweezers fell into the sink with a small clink and Gavin muttered a small question as to where the bandages were kept.

Rummaging in the area that had been indicated by the others pained nod, he gave a small grimace of triumph as he secured a large roll of gauze, and even a fairly decent antiseptic.

"Gavin," he muttered as he gently swabbed the wound.

"Sniper." The man grunted in reply.

"Pleasure" the irony dripping from the words was palpable, though Heavy [who had by now disappeared] might have missed it.

'Who are you." The man accused

"Already told you that"

"It doesn't escape my notice, mate, that you should be dead." Sniper noted dryly as Gavin secured the bandages. Gavin leaned back against the wall, stripping a set of bloody gloves off of his hands and tossing those into the sink as well.

"As Heavy noticed, I'm new." Gavin pursed his lips and studied the man across from them. He was, as said, a lean man, with a hungry look about him, as if very few things in life brought him any kind of joy. He had short dark brown hair and a pair of thin sideburns accentuating his thin cheekbones. Intelligent brown eyes bored into his own from feet away, cold eyes, the doctor suppressed a shiver.

"Not every day something like this happens." A lip curled up into a small smile, "not every day a man who looks like someone dead appears."

Gavin shrugged a half movement of his left shoulder filled with tiredness.

"Experience tells me you wouldn't believe me."

"Try me mate"

"This isn't real."

The other man's eyebrows rose towards his hairline, an expression trending more towards mild surprise than anything else.

"Mate, I could have told you that." Sniper glanced towards the still open door, and with a small movement a long leg eased the door shut. The room suddenly seemed claustrophobic, and Gavin wished he wasn't wearing he heavy pack, because at the moment he really wanted to run away. "I might not remember much, but I know enough to tell that this, "he made a slow gesture to the room, and maybe the world in general, 'is quite fake." The face turned angry, "Day after day, fighting like caged animals, and after the old Doc was killed, well I can tell you I had my suspicions."

Gavin stared at his face hardly daring to move a muscle.

"Fighting for a briefcase filled with blank pages, and a woman's voice screaming at us every round, always the same, barely any deviations."

"You caught on." Gavin surmised. Sniper's lips tightened.

"Not at first, no. After the first month, well, things seemed fishy. No one ever died, or at least no one stayed dead for very long, which ain't natural at all. You coming, well that just confirmed it. So please enlighten me as to what's going on?"

"The simple version, an please forgive me if its to ironic, its all a game."

"You're shitting me."

" I wish." Gavin dragged a hand through thinning brown hair, hair a few shades to light. Not his body, not his at all.

"Escape?"

"Impossible."

Sniper grew quiet.

" Why?"

"I owed you, even if I didn't know you."

As the door sung closed Gavin stared at the wall, and at the toilet still splattered with blood in some places.

He was quiet, and so when a frantic voice pierced his thoughts he jumped.

_GAVIN!_


End file.
